Stakeknife

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Stakeknife^[1] is the code name of a spy who infiltrated the Provisional IRA, at a high level, as an agent working for the top secret British Force Research Unit (FRU). Reports claim that Stakeknife has been working for the British for 25 years.^[2]

Stakeknife had his own dedicated handlers and agents and it was suggested that he was important enough that MI5 set up an office dedicated solely to him. Rumours suggested that he was being paid at least £80,000 a year and had a bank account in Gibraltar.^[3]

Serious allegations have emerged to the effect that the British government allowed up to forty people to be killed via the PIRA's Internal Security Unit or "Nutting Squad" to protect his cover.^[4]

On May 11, 2003, several newspapers named Freddie Scappaticci as Stakeknife. Scappaticci denied the claims and launched an unsuccessful legal action to have the British government state he was not their agent.^[5] He later left Northern Ireland and was rumoured to be living in Cassino, Italy. There were also reported sightings in Tenerife.^[6]

A report in a February 2007 edition of the Belfast News Letter reported that a casette recording allegedly of Scappaticci talking about the number of murders he was involved in via the "Nutting Squad", as well as his work as an Army agent, had been lodged with the PSNI in 2004 and subsequently passed to the Stevens Inquiry in 2005.^[7]

The former British Intelligence agent who worked in the FRU known as "Martin Ingram" has written a book titled Stakeknife since the original allegations came to light in which he accuses Scappaticci of being the agent in question.